We bought a new bed and need to get rid of the old bed. I took a picture of the old bed (a wood headboard and metal frame) and posted the item on craigslist. Within the first two hours after posting, we got an email about it. That was impressive; I didn’t expect it to be that quick. The email gave me a phone number to call the prospective buyer, so I called immediately.

My phone call went straight to her voice mail, and while I was leaving a message, my phone beeped to tell me a call was coming in. I finished leaving my message and then clicked over to the new call. The incoming call was the woman for whom I was just leaving the message. So she started dialing my number while I was still connected to her number. (I understand how that works technologically, but it’s a bit weird socially). She asked about the bed and then got our address to come by and look at it. She requested 10:00 the next morning, and I agreed.

I showed up to meet her at 10:00, and I waited for 15 minutes. She never showed. At 11:45, she called and left a message on our machine saying “I have to cancel” the 10:00 meet—really?—and she’d try again later.

Fortunately, we have another email inquiring about the bed, so maybe I won’t deal with that woman again.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I mentioned in this blog last week that I had bought a few books from a used book store. I needed to put them somewhere out of my way, so I shoved them on the book shelf under my desk.

The shelf is packed full; there might be fifty books under there, on a shelf only 24″ wide—there’s a row of books behind the front row, and two more rows sitting on top of both. It’s holding thick, hardback text books and small paperback novels. I had to pull some out to rearrange how they were packed in, and while I had some scattered about the floor, I noted the wide range of subjects.

Some of the books on the shelf under my desk:

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen E. Ambrose — the story of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White — the quintessential text on writing style

Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond — theories on how the different peoples of the world evolved and progressed differently

The Art of War, by Sun-tzu — ancient and influential text on tactics and strategies for warfare

Triggernometry, by Eugene Cunningham — short biographies of many well known Wild West gunfighters

Philosophy, by James L. Christian — college textbook on “the art of wondering”

U.S. Army Survival Handbook, by Department of the Army — exactly what the title says

Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, by Brian Daley — a novel about Han Solo and Chewbacca before the first Star Wars movie

Inside Delta Force, by Eric L. Haney — “The story of America’s elite counterterrorist unit”

A Short Victorious War, by David Weber — a “space opera” novel in the Honor Harrington series

Civil War Trivia and Fact Book, by Webb Garrison — just what the title says

The Mighty Eighth, by Gerald Astor — the story of the U.S. Army 8th Air Force in World War II

World of Warcraft Game Manual — player manual for the computer game

Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heilein — science fiction novel

Phule’s Company, by Robert Asprin — science fiction comedy novel

Saga of Old City, by Gary Gygax — fantasy novel based on Dungeons & Dragons

The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks — fantasy novel

Blackhawk Down, by Mark Bowden — the story of the battle of Mogadishu, Somalia

Soldat, by Siegfried Knappe — “Reflections of a German soldier, 1936-1949”

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien — fantasy novel

Weapons, by The Diagram Group — illustrated listing and history of weapons through the ages

Westward the Tide, by Louis L’amour — western novel

The White Rose, by Glen Cook — fantasy novel

Under the Black Flag, by David Cordingly — a history of 18th Century Pirates

The Little Red Caboose, by Marian Potter and Tibor Gergely — a children’s book

My junior and senior year high school year books — a bunch of teenagers thinking they own the world

I put all the books back on the shelf, packed nice and neat. The above titles are only a random sampling; there’s two to six more of each of the above subjects or by each of the above authors. For instance, the whole Honor Harrington science fiction series is on the shelf, six or eight thin Louis L’amour western novels, the whole Black Company fantasy novel series, and a few dozen non-fiction books on various eras, wars, and battles (mostly WWII stuff).

The only unique book on the shelf is The Little Red Caboose. This is one of my childhood books that my mother found several months ago and gave to me; I reread it and then carefully put it on the shelf. I remember it from my young days, and it has all the signs of having been well read many years ago.

The only surprise I found was the two high school year books. I didn’t know they were under my desk; I would have thought they were packed away in a box somewhere. Thinking back on it, I really wish I had chosen to work on the year book in high school. I can’t really put my finger on why, but I think it would be a cool thing to look back on.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Nine kids hyped up on excitement and iced cake played through our house and backyard for two hours. It actually all went pretty well. No one got an eye put out, no one vomited on the carpet, no one set fire to the sofa, and no one peed on the kitchen floor. They were all a pretty good bunch of kids; we’d have them back anytime.

The now 3 year old has been talking about his birthday for several weeks, and we asked him how he wanted everything. He wanted (and got) dinosaur plates and napkins, a dinosaur cake (sheet cake with toy dinos on it), and blue balloons. I think he was quite pleased with his birthday, and he was very tired at the end of the day.

For organized activity, we hid small pumpkins around the backyard and let the kids search for them. Once they each had a pumpkin, they decorated them with markers and stickers. Kids love that kind of thing.

The birthday-boy did pretty well with opening his gifts. He mostly sat still to open everything, and thanked each guest (after being prompted by me, every time). He’s getting to the age where his toys are stuff I find interesting and fun. I loved it when his big brother reached three years old, and he started getting cool toys: action figures, Hot Wheels cars, and such.

One of the moms asked me if I liked assembling kids’ toys. She said her husband is never real thrilled about having to put their kids’ toys together. I pointed out that they have two girls—that’s a whole different set of toys. I like putting together my boys’ toys: castles, fire stations, spaceships, and such stuff.

We got some pretty cool stuff. . . . Oops, did I say, “we”? I mean, the 3 year old got some cool stuff. My favorite gift was the Hot Wheels cars. I remember liking them when I was a kid, and I can still find a “happy place” when I hold them and look at them. But if I want to play with them, in my own way, I have to do it when I’m not playing with the little guy. He wants me to play how he wants me to play, and that’s usually to just sit there and hold a single car, of his choice.

Tonight before bed, I played with him while he played with some of his new toys. We played with some Hot Wheels (I was designated a single, particular car) and a small city play set. When he left the room to drink some milk before brushing his teeth, I got to zoom around a bit with the cool cars I wanted to play with, for about five minutes. I’ll have to sneak me another chance, sometime, to drive around the little city in my choice of tricked-out hot rod. Vroom.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I had the boys by myself all yesterday, and we were having a boy’s day out. While driving to the park in the afternoon, I heard on the radio (classic rock station!) that a NASCAR race car was at a store in a local shopping center. I caught the name of the shopping center, but I missed the name of the store and the car. I asked the boys if they’d like to see a real NASCAR race car in person, and got an enthusiastic, “Yeah.” So I turned to head for the shopping center.

We found the car at a new AT&T store: Jeff Burton’s #31. I parked the van and we all got out. There was another family—dad, mom, two boys—looking at the car when we walked up. Both my boys wanted to run their hands all over it, and it was all I could do to just limit them to touching it only a dozen times each.

Like most NASCAR cars, it had the main sponsor logo (AT&T) on the hood, and two dozen other names and logos stickered all over the place. The thing that surprised me about all the stickers (the headlights and taillights are stickers, too, in case you didn’t know—I knew they weren’t real) was that they actually were stickers. I thought they were a paint job on the car body. I thought they’d peel off in the wind of 180 mph speeds, but I guess they don’t.

We looked inside the car and saw all the dials, safety restraints, electronics, and hoses that surround the driver. (I had to hold the 2 year old up to see inside.) When the boys weren’t looking at me, I pulled up one of the wind flaps on the roof just to feel it. (The flaps that come up if the car spins around—they help slow the car when it’s out of control—I don’t know if “wind flap” is the actual name.)

We spent about ten minutes looking the car over, and we were ready to go. I walked over and asked one of the guys in the AT&T racing outfits (Jeff Burton, himself, was not there) when they were going to crank the car up and put it back in the trailer.

“At 6:00,” he answered.

“Okay,” I said, “we’ll try to be here.” It was 2:00, then, so we had four hours before the sound show started.

Asking this question was something I learned from my dad. It’s been many, many years since I last saw a NASCAR race car in person—Richard Petty’s #43. Since then, I’ve only seen and heard them on TV. But my dad has seen a couple in the past few years, and he mentioned being present when they cranked the monster up.

So we boys went about our business around town. At 5:30, I remembered I wanted the boys to hear the car run, so I hustled the three of us back to the van. It took every minute of the 30 we had to get back to the AT&T store. The car was still there, sitting quiet in the parking lot.

There were about a dozen other people hanging around looking at the car—half of them parents, the other half young boys. As we got out of our van, I explained to my boys that when they crank up the car, it will be very loud. I didn’t want either of them startled by it when it fired up. We, all three, again went over the car with eyes and hands until I could tell the crew was getting ready to pack it up. I herded the boys to the curb about 12 feet from the car. The other families in the crowd also backed away from the car.

One of the crew took down the window net and climbed in slowly. Once settled in, he flipped a switch. The car made a whirring sound like an old car on a cold morning. Whirrwhirrwhirrwhirr. . . A guy in the crowd commented that it sounded like his own car. The crew guy kept it going for probably 20 seconds, and then the engine erupted to life. BOOMRUMBLERUMBLE. . . I bet that didn’t sound like his own car. Hot damn, but that is a powerful sound. It sounds like a metal popcorn machine, but faster, and a thousand times louder. The crew guy revved the engine a couple times and I could feel the vibration coming from the engine. That’s the sound of around 800 horsepower under the hood—awesome!

The sound brought another half-dozen people from around the stores and parking lot to come look and listen. I had my hand on both boys, and they seemed to be mesmerized by the car; neither seemed scared or nervous. The car sat and rumbled for several minutes, much to the enjoyment of everyone around, except maybe anyone inside the stores trying to shop or work.

The driver pulled the car out of the parking spaces it was spread across and moved into the driving lane between. He backed up a bit and then motioned for one of the bystanders to come to him. After their brief, shouted discussion, the bystander waved and shouted for the people near the car to back away. I didn’t see why everyone had to back away, as no one was in his way to the truck trailer. But once everyone had backed up, he showed us his intentions.

He put the hammer down and spun the back wheels so that gray smoke swirled around the tires; he laid down dual eight-foot, black streaks in the road. The squeal of the tires and the smell of rubber filled the air. Hot damn, again! Fantastic! Then he slowly drove to and into the travel trailer.

To think that the NASCAR drivers, like Jeff Burton, sit in those powerful machines for hours, at upwards of 200 miles per hour, with a dozen other cars going the same speed just feet or inches away from them. I had a respect for race car drivers already, but seeing the car, hearing the sound of the engine, and feeling the power radiate around it, really impressed me.

As the crowd was dispersing, some guy, not a part of the original crowd, with a cell phone up to his ear, shouted, “Jeff Burton sucks! Tony Stewart is the man! Home Depot car all the way!” Geez, but does there have to be an idiot in every crowd.

As we got in the van, my 6 year old son said, “That guy that yelled doesn’t know NASCAR.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Everybody likes all the drivers in NASCAR,” he explained.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com